Chapter 424 The Silk Road and Luoyang

Hexi.

At noon, the sun was shining brightly, and outside the city of Ganzhou, Ganzhou Uighur Khan Yao Luoge Renyu led members of the Ganzhou Uighur royal family, as well as Ganzhou and Suzhou household registration lists, official seals of the former Tang Dynasty, etc. to surrender out of the city.

Not long ago, Ganzhou Uighurs gathered 100,000 troops for a decisive battle with the Western Expedition. As a result, Li Chongjin and Han Tong led a battalion of 30,000 infantry and cavalry and a 30,000 light cavalry battalion to attack and defeated Ganzhou Uighurs.

Ganzhou Uighurs were killed by 30,000 people and captured more than 30,000 people. The rest were discouraged and fled back to Ganzhou City. Then Li Chongjin and Han Tong led their troops to besiege Ganzhou City. There were no reinforcements outside and morale inside was low. , Ganzhou Uihe finally begged to surrender.

Li Chongjin agreed to the surrender of Ganzhou Huihe, and then sent troops to escort the Ganzhou Huihe Khan's family and the royal family to Bianliang. Only Guo Rong is qualified to deal with these people.

Originally, Li Chongjin had some thoughts of competing with Guo Rong. After all, he was the nephew of the late emperor Guo Wei, and Guo Rong was the adopted son of the late emperor. It was hard to say who was closer between the two. However, after the last Phoenix came and Guo Rong's prestige reached its peak, I no longer have this intention.

Therefore, he would naturally not do anything arrogant, not to mention that he had Han Tong, Guo Rong's confidant, by his side.

After the Uighurs in Ganzhou were conquered, most of the land in Hexi was occupied by the Zhou Kingdom. Next, Li Chongjin sent people directly to Shazhou, Guazhou, and asked the Yijun army to surrender to the Zhou state.

At this time, after being defeated by the Uighurs of Ganzhou decades ago, the Guiyi Army could only survive in Shazhou, Guazhou. If there were no accidents, they would eventually die in Xixia and would not return to the Central Plains Dynasty until more than three hundred years later.

But this time with the arrival of Richard, these rebel troops returned to the Central Plains Dynasty hundreds of years in advance.

After meeting Li Chongjin's envoy, Cao Yuanzhong, the Jiedushi envoy of the Guiyi Army, knew that the Great Zhou Dynasty had unified the north and the world was about to be unified again. He immediately expressed his willingness to surrender and went there in person with the household registration list of Guasha and Guizhou and the flags and flags of the Guiyi Army. Ganzhou met with Li Chongjin.

When the Guiyi Army surrendered to the former Tang Dynasty, it was almost their most glorious period. However, due to internal fighting and the distrust of the Tang Dynasty, the internal struggle for power became extremely fierce.

Fighting against each other has severely damaged the vitality of the Guiyi army, and now they can only survive.

In the end, in the land of Hexi where barbarians are everywhere, they endured hardships and survived in the cracks. When they heard about the arrival of the Central Plains Heavenly Soldiers, they were as excited as children who had been wronged outside and saw their parents.

It can be said that the Guiyi Army is the one who most hopes for the arrival of the Central Plains Heavenly Soldiers in the whole world.

Ganzhou.

"I don't see you, the Han army is at an end, please take long tassels if you are weak!"

"Don't you see, Ban Dingyuan, Jueyu Qingqi Cui Zhanyun!"

It was noon at this time, the sun was shining brightly, and in the camp outside Ganzhou City, thousands of soldiers were practicing. War songs were loud, flags were fluttering, and countless men sang military songs loudly.

This military song was naturally given to the Western Expedition army by Richard.

The Western Expedition is not a good job. The environment in the Western Regions is very poor. Once you leave Hexi, you have to face thousands of miles of desert. Without enough will and courage, it is impossible to complete this thousands of miles of journey.

Richard gave them military songs just to create a military spirit in them. Now it seems that the effect is very good.

At this moment, a group of people came flying from a distance. These people carried the banner of Cao, the governor of the Guiyi Army. There were about a hundred people, and they quickly arrived near the military camp.

When he heard the sound of lively drills coming from the military camp and saw the soldiers, Cao Yuanzhong couldn't help but sigh: "The heavenly soldiers from the Central Plains have arrived, and we finally have something to rely on!"

"After a hundred years, I heard the local accent again! I didn't expect that one day I would be able to return to the Central Plains!"

The surrounding Guiyi troops also cried bitterly.

Cao Yuanzhong came to Ganzhou with his entourage and met with Li Chongjin. Li Chongjin warmly entertained everyone in the Guiyi Army. When Guo Rong went to war again, he had repeatedly told him to treat the Guiyi Army well.

Li Chongjin first appeased Cao Yuanzhong, then took out Guo Rong's imperial edict for the Guiyi Army, praised the Guiyi Army, and then asked Cao Yuanzhong to go to Hajj.

Cao Yuanzhong happily brought the imperial edict and his entourage to the Hajj under the escort of troops sent by Li Chongjin.

The Guiyi Army began and integrated into the Western Expedition. As a force west of Hexi, the Guiyi Army had a good understanding of the situation in Hexi and the Western Regions. At this time, the Western Regions were already occupied by the Kara Khanate, and the Kara Khanate also began to move toward Khotan and Gaochang. Huihe attacked.

After the Kara Khanate changed its faith, it received support from many countries in Central Asia, and they were ready to spread their faith to the east.

Now the goal of the Western Expedition is to restore the homeland of the Han and Tang Dynasties, establish the Western Region Protectorate, and reopen the Silk Road. After the army occupied Hexi, it did not continue its western expedition, but began to garrison troops in Dunhuang, Shazhou, Ganzhou, and Liangzhou.

At the same time, the Shandan Military Horse Farm in Hexi was restored.

As the largest military horse farm in China, Shandan Military Horse Farm was of great significance to the Central Plains Dynasty. With this Shandan military horse farm, the Central Plains dynasty will have enough war horses to easily go to war outside the Great Wall, and the grassland people will be beaten by the Central Plains dynasty.

After Zhou Guo recaptured Longyou in Hexi Province, he obtained the Shandan Army Horse Farm and immediately rebuilt the Shandan Army Horse Farm.

The Western Expedition army prepared to camp in Hexi for one year before embarking on the Western Expedition. On the one hand, it was to adapt to the climate in Hexi, and on the other hand, it was to hoard food and grass.

After continuing westward from Dunhuang, they need to cross a thousand miles of sand sea. In this environment, it is extremely difficult for the army to pass, so good planning must be carried out and the troops must pass in batches.

So training is necessary.

Time passed quickly. The Khan of Ganzhou Huihe and the Jiedushi of Guiyi Army arrived one after another, which made Guo Rong very happy. Guo Rong ordered the Ganzhou Huihe to migrate to Hebei, Shandong, Henan and other regions in batches. He ordered all Ganzhou Huihe to change their Chinese names, learn Chinese, and change their customs.

At the same time, he ordered that Ganzhou Huihe be prohibited from marrying within the same clan. More than 200,000 Ganzhou Huihe were considered a force in Hexi, but they could not even make a small splash when they were divided into the Central Plains.

After issuing the order to migrate Ganzhou Huihe, Guo Rong again ordered 30,000 households to be drawn from Henan, Guanzhong and Shandong to migrate to Ganzhou and Liangzhou.

There are not enough Han people in Ganzhou and Liangzhou. If they are not filled with Han people, the rule here will not be stable.

At the same time, the natural environment in Ganzhou and Liangzhou is not bad, and the water source is abundant. It is easy to cultivate hundreds of thousands of acres of land, and graze at the same time. If it is well managed, it is not a problem to feed hundreds of thousands of people.

All the people who migrated to Gan and Liang states can get 100 mu of land, one ox, one horse, and five sheep. It can be said that as long as you come here, you can immediately have a lot of wealth, which is much better than the Central Plains.

Seeing that the court rewards are so generous, many people took the initiative to sign up, but in the end they still failed to gather 30,000 households. After all, only a few people are willing to leave their homes and migrate to Hexi.

Richard could only force the migration.

Thirty thousand households migrated to Hexi. At the same time, Richard began to discuss with Guo Rong about moving the capital to Luoyang.

Although Tokyo Bianliang was prosperous, with canals extending in all directions, extremely prosperous business, and a booming population, it also had a huge disadvantage.

Bianjing had no strategic defense.

Kaifeng was surrounded by plains. As long as the cavalry broke through Hebei, they could drive straight into Kaifeng. In addition to having no strategic advantages, Kaifeng was too narrow inside and was not suitable as a capital. At the same time, Kaifeng was very close to the Yellow River. At this time, the Yellow River had become a river on the ground. Once the Yellow River broke its dike, Kaifeng was likely to be flooded.

Of course, in addition to these reasons, there is another reason that Kaifeng's geographical location is not suitable for the development of the Western Regions. In fact, if you want to develop the Western Regions, Chang'an is more suitable, but after hundreds of years of development, Chang'an is no longer suitable as an imperial capital because of the over-development of the Tang Dynasty, felling of trees, and serious soil erosion.

Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, Luoyang is more suitable as an imperial capital. Luoyang is connected to the Yellow River by the Luoshui River. Although it is not as smooth as the Kaifeng Canal, it is also connected by a canal, and the canal transportation is also convenient. In addition, there are pass protections around Luoyang, which is much better than Kaifeng without any cover.

In addition, Luoyang is closer to the Western Regions, which is more suitable for developing the Western Regions and restarting the Silk Road. In this way, Luoyang is very suitable as an imperial capital.

As for the future marine trade, it is also possible to transport from Luoyang to the sea through the Yellow River, which can also promote marine trade.

Therefore, after discussing with Guo Rong, Richard began to prepare to move the capital to Luoyang. However, before moving the capital, Luoyang needs to be repaired.

Luoyang at this time was no longer the Eastern Capital of the Tang Dynasty. After the wars of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms in the late Tang Dynasty, Luoyang City was almost destroyed. Several wars around Luoyang made it dilapidated and no longer had the style of an imperial capital.

So Richard personally sent people to Luoyang to rebuild it. At the same time, he recruited a large number of refugees to go to Luoyang to reclaim land.

Luoyang has fertile land and is very suitable for reclamation and planting. Richard transferred a large amount of money and grain to Luoyang City to build palaces. The area of ​​the palace city in Kaifeng is too small. Since Luoyang City is to be rebuilt, it is natural to make reasonable plans.

In addition to the imperial city, Richard also asked to build official residences, which were prepared for high-ranking officials of the court. There are many benefits to building official residences, the biggest of which is that it can prevent officials from secretly colluding.

The official residences will be built uniformly, so that officials can live in a unified manner. Only one person needs to send some people to guard them, and the emperor will basically know if officials want to collude.

This is very important for the emperor, and building official residences is also an opportunity for those honest officials. You must know that living in the imperial capital is not an easy thing.

In the current Kaifeng City, any courtyard costs one or two hundred strings of cash, and the courtyards closer to the imperial city have increased to five or six hundred strings of cash, which is not a small amount even in terms of the official salary.

Those officials cannot even buy a house, which makes them feel unbalanced. They may start to engage in corruption or abuse their power for personal gain, so the official residence is also a guarantee for those officials who come from humble backgrounds.